ments shall, for thirty days after the issuance of the President's proclamation, have the preference right of entry of the lands upon which the improvements purchased by him are situated: Provided further, That the said purchase shall not exceed one hundred and sixty acres: And provided further, that the proceeds of the sale of such improvements shall be paid to the Indians owning the same.

Each applicant to enter any of these lands as a homestead must have the qualifications required of any applicant for homestead entry under existing law. He must, at time of making his original entry, pay the sum of fifty cents per acre in addition to the regular fee and commissions, and at time of making final proof pay the further sum of seventy-five cents per acre, in addition to the regular final commissions. No final commission will be collected where the party submits proof under section 2301 Revised Statutes.

In this connection and for your information and guidance the following paragraph in the President's proclamation is here inserted.

An error having been made in 1873 in the survey and location of the eastern boundary of the reservation hereby opened to settlement and entry whereby certain lands constituting a part of the reservation were erroneously identified as being outside of the reservation, by reason of which several persons in good faith settled upon said lands under the belief that the same were unappropriated public lands open to settlement, and have since improved and cultivated, and are now residing upon the same with a view to the entry thereof under the public land laws, notice is hereby given that in so far as said persons possess the qualifications required by law, and maintain their said settlement and residence up to the time of the opening herein provided for, they will be considered and treated as having initiated and established a lawful settlement at the very instant at which the lands become open, and as having the superior right and claim to enter said lands, which right must be exercised within three months from the time of said opening.

Desert, town-site, coal, mineral, stone and timber entries will be made for said lands in accordance with the general laws applicable thereto.

The ordinary homestead, desert, town-site, coal, mineral, stone and timber blanks will be used, continuing your regular series of numbers, but indicating upon the entry papers and abstracts that the entries are made under the act of February 20, 1895, section 4, Southern Ute Indian reservation lands.

Your special attention is directed to that part of the proclamation which states that the improvements on the NE NW, S NW1 and NW SW Sec. 1, T. 33 N., R. 9 W., will be sold, and that the party purchasing such improvements will be given thirty days' preference right of entry for the land, after the issuance of the proclamation. Govern yourselves accordingly in the disposition of said tracts.

You will give information as to the opening to the local papers as a matter of news.

Approved,

E. A. HITCHCOCK, Secretary.

FLORIDA HOMESTEADS-RELIEF ACT OF FEBRUARY 25, 1899.

INSTRUCTIONS.

Commissioner Hermann to register and receiver, Gainesville, Florida, April 4, 1899.

Your attention is called to the act of Congress (Public No. 68), approved February 25, 1899, entitled "An Act for the relief of certain homestead settlers in Florida," which provides as follows:

Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representatives of the United States of America in Congress assembled, That any qualified homestead claimant who was in good faith actually occupying a homestead claim under the laws of the United States in the State of Florida in the month of September, anno Domini eighteen hundred and ninety-six, and who was by, through, or on account of a storm which passed through said State during said month driven from or compelled to leave and remain away from such homestead, may within one year from the passage of this act return to such homestead claim and proceed to perfect title thereto as though absence therefrom had not occurred.

Under the provisions of said act any qualified homestead claimant who was in good faith actually occupying a homestead claim under the laws of the United States in the State of Florida, in the month of September, 1896, and who was, on account of the storm mentioned in the act, driven from or compelled to leave and to remain away from such homestead may return to such homestead within one year from February 25, 1899, the date of the approval of the act, and proceed to perfect title thereto as though absence from such homestead had not occurred.

Said act does not mention the day of the month in which the storm took place, but it is construed as meaning or intending to mean the storm of September 29, 1896, which did much damage in the State of Florida and chiefly in the counties of Alachua, Columbia, Lafayette, Levy, and one or two other counties of said State.

Said act is construed as covering all homestead entries of record in your office at the time or on the day the storm took place and which, since that date, have not been relinquished by the entrymen and canceled on the records of your office by reason of relinquishment, or for any other reason.

Where entries have been canceled since the storm of September, 1896, on the relinquishment of claimants compelled to leave their claims on account of said storm, and other persons have made homestead entry of the lands covered thereby, said act is not construed as in any manner affecting the rights of said last named entrymen.

To entitle a party to the relief afforded by said act it must be shown by his affidavit, corroborated by two or more disinterested witnesses, what comprised his improvements on the homestead claim at the time of the storm, such affidavit to be accompanied with a brief statement, duly sworn to, showing the particulars compelling him to leave and remain away from his claim, such affidavit and statement to be filed in your office and to accompany his final proof when submitted.

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Any homestead claimant seeking to avail himself of the relief afforded by said act will have one year from February 25, 1899, the date of the approval of the act, in which to come forward and substantiate his claim for such relief. Such persons when submitting final proof will be credited with the time intervening between the 29th day of September 1896, the day on which the storm took place, and the respective dates when they resume settlement and make known to you their intentions to avail themselves of the benefits named in the act, just as though they had been actually occupying their respective claims during such intervening period.

Approved,

E. A. HITCHCOCK,

Secretary.

OKLAHOMA LANDS-GREER COUNTY-ACT OF MARCH 1, 1899.

INSTRUCTIONS.

Commissioner Hermann to register and receiver, Mangum, Oklahoma, April 13, 1899.

Your attention is called to the provisions of the act of Congress entitled "An Act to amend Section one of an Act to provide for the entry of lands in Greer County, Oklahoma Territory, to give preference right to settlers, and for other purposes," approved March 1, 1899, (Public No. 108) which reads as follows:

Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representatives of the United States of America in Congress assembled, That section one of an act to give preference right to settlers in Greer county, Oklahoma Territory, is hereby so amended as to allow parties who have had the benefit of the homestead laws of the United States, and who had purchased lands in Greer county from the State of Texas prior to March sixteenth, eighteen hundred and ninety-six, to perfect titles to said lands according to the provisions of section one herein before mentioned, under such regulations as the Commissioner of the General Land Office may prescribe, and according to the legal subdivisions of the public surveys, if no adverse rights have attached: Provided, That no settler shall be permitted to acquire to exceed three hundred and twenty acres under this provision.

The preference right and privileges granted by section one of the act of January 18, 1897 (29 Stat., 490), which is thus amended, were by the terms of that section limited to persons "qualified under the homestead laws of the United States."

This amendatory act does not grant a right to make an additional or second homestead entry in Greer county to one who had theretofore made a homestead entry under section one of the original act, but it does extend to those who had purchased lands in Greer county from the State of Texas prior to March 16, 1896, the privileges given by that section even where they "have had the benefit of the homestead laws of the United States" and are for that reason not qualified under such homestead laws.

A purchaser directly from the State or through mesne conveyances

from the State, will be deemed a purchaser from the State under the provisions of the amendatory act.

Under section one of the original act a preference right was granted. for six months from the passage of that act within which to exercise the right of homestead entry and to make the purchase of additional lands therein provided for. Under the terms of the amendatory act and the authority to prescribe regulations thereunder a similar privilege is extended to the class therein named, the same to date from the passage of the amendatory act, March 1, 1899.

The manner of making homestead entry or purchase under the amendatory act, and the character of proof evidencing a purchase from the State of Texas, will be the same as that required by the circular of February 15, 1897 (24 L. D., 184), but instead of stating that he has not had the benefit of the homestead laws of the United States, the applicant will only be required to state that he has not made a homestead entry of lands in Greer County pursuant to the provisions of section one of the act of January 18, 1897.

It will also be necessary in applying to make either a homestead entry or a purchase under the amendatory act, that the applicant make affidavit to the fact that no adverse right to the land applied for existed on March 1, 1899, the date of the amendatory act, the operation of the amendment being limited to lands to which "no adverse rights have attached".

The affidavit of the applicant to the effect that no adverse rights existed to the lands applied for on March 1, 1899, will be sufficient upon which to allow the application, if no claim therefor had been previously filed in the local office.

The entry or purchase may, however, be contested by any adverse claimant, provided the adverse claim is timely presented. Approved,

E. A. HITCHCOCK,

Secretary.

PRIVATE CLAIM-CERTIFICATE OF LOCATION-ACT OF JUNE 3, 1858. ARCHIBALD MCMANUS.

Section 2, act of May 8, 1822, providing for the confirmation of private claims theretofore reported as entitled to such recognition, operated to confirm claims so reported, without respect to the limitation in the matter of acreage contained in the act of March 3, 1819; and where, in the adjustment of a claim thus confirmed, said limitation has been imposed, additional certificates of location, equal in amount to such reduction, should issue under section 3, act of June 2, 1858.

Secretary Hitchcock to the Commissioner of the General Land Office, (W. V. D.)

April 14, 1899.

(C. W. P.) The appeal of James L. Bradford, Esq., as attorney for Archibald McManus, curator of the estate of Francis Herault, deceased, from the decision of your office of September 11, 1897, refusing to approve cer

tain certificates of location, issued to the said McManus as the legal representative of the said Francis Herault, deceased, by the United States surveyor-general, at New Orleans, Louisiana, under the third section of the act of June 2, 1858 (11 Stat., 294), in satisfaction of the Louisiana private land claim of the said Herault, has been duly considered.

In 1803, the Louisiana territory was ceded to the United States by France, and April 25, 1812, Congress passed an act for ascertaining the titles and claims to lands in that part of the Louisiana territory which lies east of the river Mississippi and island of New Orleans and west of the river Perdido (2 Stat., 713). The act provided that the lands within said limits shall be laid off into two land districts, between which Pearl river shall be the boundary, and for each of which districts a commissioner of land claims shall be appointed by the President. James O. Cosby was appointed commissioner for the district west of Pearl river, and pursuant to said act, he reported, June 7, 1813, as No. 21 in register C, the claim of Francis Herault. Said register C contains the claims to land in said district founded on grants said to be derived from either the French, British, or Spanish governments, which in the opinion of the commissioner are not valid, according to the laws, usages, or customs, of such governments (American State Papers, Vol. 3, p. 58, Gales and Seaton's Edition).

Congress next passed the act of March 3, 1819 (3 Stat., 528), by which certain claims, reported by the commissioners under the act of 1812, are recognized as valid and complete titles; other claims, though incomplete, are confirmed; and grants are made as donations to a certain class of actual settlers not having any written evidence of claim. But no provision was made for validating the claims embraced in register C. March 17, 1820, Messrs. Cosby and Skipwith, register and receiver of the district west of Pearl river, Louisiana, acting as commissioners under the act of 1812, presented Herault's claim for confirmation, as No. 1 of register E, which contains "renewed claims" "founded on complete and incomplete titles derived either from the British or Spanish governments, which in the opinion" of the register and receiver ought to be confirmed by the government of the United States.

The claim is reported in said register E. as founded on a Spanish patent, dated October 3, 1806; quantity of land claimed 2000 arpents; situated in East Baton Rouge; grant made by Morales, the Spanish intendant; surveyed June 8, 1806, by Dupin; inhabitation and cultiva tion from 1807 to 1813.

The register and receiver, in recommending the claims in register E for confirmation by Congress, state that in their estimation, the claims contained in register E ought to be confirmed under the provisions and limitations of the law of the 3d of March, 1819. (Am. State Papers, Vol. 3, p. 441.)

In Cosby's report, under "general remarks," it is stated that the land was sold to Herault at 25 cents per arpent.